Javier Torre rides his bicycle through the flooded streets of the Playa de Ponce coastal area in Ponce, Puerto Rico on Tuesday. John McConnico/AP

Web-posted September 11, 1996

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The Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Hurricane Hortense lashed Puerto Rico with punishing winds and torrents of rain Tuesday, killing eight people as it snapped trees and power lines, swelled rivers and collapsed hillsides.

Half the dead were children, including an 8-year-old girl swept from her father's arms as her 13-year-old sister drowned. Despite valiant rescue attempts across the island, police said the death toll could rise once they reach areas cut off when the hurricane passed over southwest Puerto Rico before dawn.

Hortense made its second direct hit of the day later Tuesday, striking the northeast tip of the Dominican Republic.

Tourists there were ordered off beaches and evacuated from ocean resorts. Authorities at eastern Punta Cana airport canceled 14 flights after clocking 90-mph wind gusts around noon, but little damage was reported on the Dominican Republic other than downed trees and telephone poles.

At 11 p.m. EDT, Hortense was headed toward the Dominican Republic's northern peninsula, threatening thousands of tourists with its 75-mph winds.

A hurricane warning was also in effect for the Turks and Caicos islands and the southeastern Bahamas.

Forecasters expect Hortense to be 400 miles east of northern Florida and 800 miles south of New York City by Friday night and heading north, said James-Louis Free of the National Hurricane Center near Miami. He said there was no way of predicting what it will do from there.

The hurricane brought nearly 18 inches of rain to Puerto Rico, where the victims included a 2-year-old boy and a 3-year-old boy killed in mudslides and the two sisters carried away by flood water.

Residents spoke of watching the girls' father trying to save the younger child, only to have the surging water drag her from his hands. The sisters' bodies were found under a bridge. Four other family members were missing.

Three adults were also confirmed drowned, and a woman was found dead - presumably of a heart attack - in her car in a west-central farming town of Lares.

Hortense cut water and electricity to most of Puerto Rico's 3.6 million people. The water supply could be contaminated by rivers overflowing into reservoirs, Scott Stripling of the U.S. National Weather Service in San Juan said.

Hundreds of cars were stranded on highways, which ran like rivers with chest-high water in San Juan, the capital. The U.S. National Guard was deployed to prevent looting throughout the flooded areas, but there were no reports of looters.

A U.S. Navy helicopter and swimmer braved winds gusting to 55 mph to rescue 11 crewmen aboard the freighter Isabella, swamped off the east coast town of Humacao.

The scene at Guayama, 30 miles south of San Juan, was among the worst.

The Guamani Canal, part of an old sugar cane mill network, burst its banks, washed out the Santo Domingo Bridge on coastal Highway 3, and forced its way through the poor Borinquen neighborhood, carrying away at least 50 homes.

Jose Melendez, 36, said he and other men tied themselves together with belts and ropes to try to save five people. But they had to abandon their efforts as the swollen river rose ever higher, as did civil defense workers later.

``There are a number of people still missing, but we don't know how many. They could be in the sea,'' Melendez said.

Three families took refuge in a single, one-story concrete home near Guayama, only to be trapped by flash flooding for nine hours.

When rescuers finally reached the home, they found four children and a man huddled on the top of a closet. Five other adults and a child were missing.

Spectators on a bank, who had been weeping and praying for their safety, clapped as rescuers brought a baby safely from the home.

Earlier reports had incorrectly said the house was swept off its foundation.

In the south, more than 200 homes were destroyed or severely damaged around the city of Ponce, civil defense and police reported.

In the worst-hit shantytown, Punta Diamante, Evelyn Rentas came back to rescue belongings from her roofless, flooded home. Among them, she carried a portrait of Puerto Rico's Gov. Pedro Rossello.